Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted to fall in love. The love you see on TV or read about in books, where you find your missing half-- the person you were meant to be with forever-- and suddenly you're complete. That's the sort of love my parents say I share with Thomas. Why, then, when he touches me, does it merely feel like a touch?

I thought true love would sear me.

--Mystic City, p. 15

The Gist: Aria Rose has been told she's been having a secret romance with Thomas, the son of the Roses' political rivals, the Fosters, but Aria can't remember Thomas, or ever loving him, due to a supposed drug overdose. Everything seems like a happily-ever-after: the Fosters and Roses are finally uniting against a political threat, and Aria is now engaged to Thomas, the supposed love of her life. Said political threat is a third-party political candidate, Violet Brooks, one of the "mystic" underclass with superpowers that is forced to have their powers drained to run the city. When Aria tries to discover more about her, erm, *suspicious* memory loss, she meets undrained rebel mystic Hunter, whom she feels a strange connection to, and he agrees to help her find out what happened to her memories and why her family is so desperate to keep it hidden.

Genre: Sci-fi/Romance (dystopian, romance, superpowers)

Cleanness Rating: No swearing, some violence and a short scene with intense gore at the end (but no torture), no sexual content. Pretty PG except for the awkward tornado of body parts at the end. (More on that later.)

The Review: 2 stars. This book is actually readable, but lacked subtlety and depth.

The plot's attempt at "stealth"-- foreshadowing what was up with Aria's memories-- didn't work for me at all. It was rather laughable. Mystic City attempted to be James Bond sneaking up ready to pull the rug out from under the reader, but ended up more like a herd of elephants running across the plains followed by a twenty-piece marching band, a horde of screaming Twilight fangirls, and a thunder of dragons. (According to Angela in the [b: Eragon|113436|Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle, #1)|Christopher Paolini|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1366212852s/113436.jpg|3178011] series says the plural form is called something different, but I can't remember what.) I'm still going to put it in spoilers for courtesy, but

Spoiler

it is really, really obvious Dr. May and his machine thingy are responsible for Aria's super screwed up, patchy memories of her love affair in the Depths, and why, when she tries to remember Thomas, comes up with something that looks like a crappy photoshop job, along with these weird schizophrenic voices in her head that are always like, "You love Thomas, you love Thomas."

The characters had no depth. Pretty much everyone in the rich-people Aeries are portrayed as horrible, evil, power-hungry anti-mystic haters. The author would not know subtlety if it bit him in the behind, and takes every moment to remind you, "BTW, all these people are mustache twisty villainous scumbags."
Ex. Aria's dad.

[My father] is a con man and a blackmailer, a leader of thugs[...] To him, love is something you use to manipulate the weak. (p. 12)

And Thomas's brother Garland, who makes a brief appearance.

Garland, Thomas's brother[...] [has] a thinner and slightly more sinister face. (p.13)

And Aria's also privileged BFF Kiki

"Everything happens so smoothly from way up here. I wonder what it's like in the Depths. If things get... messy."
"Who cares?" Kiki asks, shrugging. page 32

And Aria's "True Love" and fiancee, Thomas

Thomas forks one of the scallops into his mouth. "They say a mystic's powers mature at thirteen, but what if that's a load of crap? There could be a bunch of crazy powerful little freaks running around. We've gotta end this before it begins, don't you think?" page 84

And Aria's mom

"How many people died?"
My mother takes a swallow of her drink. "Does it matter?" [...]
I'm speechless, numb. She could at least pretend to be sad that innocent people lost their lives. page 92

Mystic City's blurb mentions class and society issues, but does not manage to address them in a realistic way. The evil people are 100% evil, the mystics are downtrodden kicked puppies.

The rest of the book was mostly instalove/Aria describing Hunter's good looks, evil rich people doing evil rich people things, and some awful love letters. Until the end, there's about zero action, and then BAM! This bloody gorefest pops out of nowhere, straight out of Terminator or maybe this scene in The Thirteenth Warrior when the Wendol shreds a whole bunch of people and leaves their entrails all over the floor.

But the tornado swallows their voices[...] Then there are sickening sounds- a whoop and a whack and body parts fly everywhere.
Hands. Feet. Arms. Legs.
And heads.
All at once, the tornado disappears, having completely blasted the men apart. Someone's finger lands near my feet, the white bone completely fleshless. I look away so I don't vomit. (379)

[The mystics] begin to spin. The joined rays of [mystic energy] slice through the men, dicing their bodies. The flesh sizzles as it burns, sending white-hot smoke into the air. Then smoke and blood are everywhere, and the body pieces cascade to the ground. page 380

Emphasis my own. But you get the idea. Kind of weird because 1) it's mostly lovey dovey until then and 2) if these mystics are so crazy powerful, why do they submit to all this oppression? They can throw laser beams at people! They can make force fields that can deflect bullets! They can burn holes through peoples' heads! They can walk through/up walls and do parkour! They can create tornadoes! They can melt floors so people standing on them will get swallowed and boiled alive! Sure, mystic powers can be deactivated by Drainings and with mercury-coated handcuffs (yeah, I don't know.), but you have to actually get close to weaken a mystic's powers. In the tornado of body parts scene, two or three mystics defeat a SWAT team with machine guns. The same thing should, in theory, work on a larger scale, so WHY ARE THEY OPPRESSED AND STUFF? But that is logic, so whatever.

Aria. She receives the Golden George W. Bush.

No offense, Mr. Bush.
For example, Aria sits on a balcony rail on a FREAKING SKYSCRAPER just for kicks, then is *oh so surprised* when she falls off. The only thing keeping her from being a splattered rich girl on the sidewalk is a *mysterious guy* saves her. This trend of only being saved by the grace of whatever deity would want to preserve such an idiotic human being continued. (Or her stalker boyfriend.) Ex. Aria runs around in the Depths, these slums below the Aeries skyscrapers, and nearly gets killed when a few gangsters recognize her. Why did she risk her life? Well, because she needed to see Thomas, but didn't want to get *tracked.* I mean, being watched by your parents is a lot more bearable than being dead. Aria has the same feelings I did at this point, as a whole bunch of grimy gangsters hold her at knifepoint because her only disguise, a hood, falls off and people recognize her.

I am going to die. I am going to die for my stupidity.

The only thing that saves her useless little arse is Hunter the Magical Mystery Boy, who shoots the gangsters with magical mystic laser beams that he can shoot out of his hands. He's of course not worried that the gangsters will report his illegal show of mystic powers to the authorities. A Mary Sue is in distress? Who can pass that chance up? This trend continues. Aria has no powers or skills whatsoever, and Hunter the Magical Mystery Boy always has to save her. Yet she still continues to waltz around the Depths in rich people party dresses and a top covered with Swarovski crystals, (I'm not making this crap up) and nothing bad happens to her. The most amazing thing is she actually makes these choices in the first place. Sure, I expected her to be naive, but her stupidity is almost borderline suicidal. She does not learn from her mistakes.

Hunter the Magical Mystery Boy... I thought Aria and Hunter's attraction was not written very well. He just shows up and Aria's like, "OMG he's hot." I guess there's a slightly spoiler-y explanation for some of the instalove

Spoiler

They fell in love in the past and that's why Aria's parents wiped her memories, because she can't be in love with a "freak" from the slums. But of course she's a Mary Sue and being forbidden makes boys so much more attractive. Just see [b: Hush, Hush.]

but still, that does not quite explain everything.

Spoiler

I mean, still, she could have had a little deja vu and a little development of their relationship, like she thinks he seems familiar, and she slowly starts to re-get to know him and like him.

He was also a stalker.

"Are you stalking me?"
"Stalking has such... dirty connotations. How about keeping watch?"

And of course she accepts that, because he's keeping her safe from her own stupidity.

Thomas... ugh. I wanted to be sympathetic to him, but all he'd ever say was basically "Mystics are evil freaks who want to kill us all" and "too bad you don't love me, because I'm only in it for the power." Also, she catches him making out with meangirl Gretchen Monasty (notice her last name has "nasty" in it) and she tells him: "You wouldn't have cheated on me if you loved me. That's not how love works." And I'm all like, you're the one making out with the rebel mystic, miss fidelity! I think the author put that thing in with Gretchen to excuse the fact Aria's relationship with Hunter basically means she's cheating on Thomas, her fiancee. And during the Awkward Tornado of Body Parts scene, this is basically what happens.

Spoiler

*boom crash bang*
Aria: Hunh? [She wakes up from being knocked out in a heap of Mary Sue.]
Hunter: haha can't touch this! [makes force field]
Thomas: grr. [fires machine gun]
Hunter: Oh no my shield! [Force field flickers]
Thomas: Muahahahhaa! I will kill you!
Aria: NOOOOOOOOOO!! [picks up gun] *POW*!
Thomas: I'm shotttt! [dies]
Hunter and Aria: Yay! *smoooch*

Aria does not reflect on killing her fiancee. At all. It's like he never existed.

The only characters I liked was Davida. I felt bad for her,

Spoiler

mainly because she could actually do stuff, yet Hunter, her betrothed, replaced her with a moronic rich girl mary sue rebel wannabe.

So Aria finds these love letters (supposedly from Thomas) and they are simply AWFUL, chalk-full of vaguely codependent language, bad flowery prose, and a bunch of ellipses (...s) that are supposed to be romantic but just end up being stupid. (Just a note, the ...s that are in []s indicate I've skipped part of the passage, but otherwise, they're there in the text.)

It has been three days since we met in the Depths. Three days and all I've been thinking of is you[...] Meet me in the Circle tomorrow night. Please. I just want to look into those starry eyes of yours one more time, and maybe, just maybe, you will want to look into mine, too. (Too corny?)

I waited and waited, but you didn't come. The entire week has been miserable. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I drive myself crazy thinking about you.

It's ridiculous how one encounter can truly change your life[...] In the morning, when I wake up, I think about your beautiful face, your dark eyes, your skin, your lips... and during the day all I hear is the sound of your voice, all I feel is the touch of your hand on my shoulder... and at night, I toss and turn, willing myself to fall asleep as quickly as possible so I can dream of you... and of us... together.

J--
It's an awesome idea to address each other as Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers that we are. I'm so happy I didn't frighten you. I thought telling you the truth-- my last name, and who I am-- would make you run... but you're much stronger than I imagined.

J--
You didn't come last night. I waited and waited. Is there somebody else? If there is... my life will be over. Everything was dark before I met you and now there is so much light-- I couldn't tolerate being shut back into darkness.[...]
Forever yours,
R

J--
Your silence is unbearable. I don't know what to think, other than you don't want me anymore... or something terrible has happened to you... and if either is true, I can't live for one more day... I will come to you tomorrow night... please be there.
R

There are no words to convey the level of cheese I feel.

Spoiler

The worst part is these are actually *legit* love letters. It would have been better if these were letters fabricated by Aria's parents or Thomas, but the worst part is they are REAL letters written by Hunter the Magical Mystery Boy. Ugh.

The worldbuilding was glossy and pretty, and for the most part made sense, but a few things stuck out. New York City is half underwater with global warming, and going outside is like getting fried, but people ask if Aria and Thomas will honeymoon in Bali. It's pretty far in the future (with magnetic light rail, fingerprint scanning in a universal transportation grid, and a screwed up planet), but the other tech, tablets, helicopters, machine guns, etc is basically what we have now. And the mystics are super poor, but they manage to have a CARNIVAL with dunk tanks, cotton candy, and prize wheels. (what?)

Conclusion: Another light dystopian romance. Perhaps good for younger audiences or something to pass the time, but do not take it too seriously, especially with the flat characters and such.

My former pre-review:
I read about 30 pages before deciding it sounded too stereotypical. Another bratty rich Mary Sue pledging eternal devotion to "misunderstood" bad boy? I don't think so.

If I finish reading this book, I'll at least have fun reviewing it.

Edit 1/2/15: Finally finished reading this book. It was... *shrugs.* Kind of flat. More to come.